President of the National Parent Teachers’ Association (NPTA) Zena Ramatali says that for a number of years, her group has been agitating for mechanisms to be put in place to hire more male teachers for the school system.

She made this comment a day after President Anthony Carmona called for more male teachers to be hired to address the 72 to 28 female to male teaching ratio imbalance.

“We have more female teachers in the system. Many of the female teachers cannot teach boys how to be a man because some female teachers cannot understand the brain development of boys. They expect boys to sit still like girls and then the boys miss out,” Ramatali said.

The NPTA has been calling for an affirmative action drive from the Ministry of Education to encourage more males to enter the teaching profession for years, and they recently met with the ministry to address this issue.

“It is something that we ought to work on in terms of attracting more males into the teaching profession,” Ramatali said.

Further agreeing with the President, Ramatali said some boys do not have male role models to influence them.

Her association has met with the ministry on numerous occasions on this issue, and she hopes that the ministry will start to encourage men to become teachers.

Antonia De Freitas, first vice president of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA), also agreed with the President stating the uneven ratio of male to female teachers is a point of concern.

“Not many men apply to teach. One major concern is that while women would provide stability, the male would be a role model,” De Freitas said.

De Freitas said 15 to 20 years ago men did not become teachers because of the low salary teachers receive.

However, she said that theory was outdated as wages for teachers have increased.